


divided we stand, united we fall

by gohoubi



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: About 3.5 years after Praimfaya, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams and Nightmares, Echo and Raven both diverge from their characters a little...if that bothers you don't read this, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Heavy Angst, Post-Episode: s04e13 Praimfaya, Raven and Echo are dating, spacekru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 23:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20732213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gohoubi/pseuds/gohoubi
Summary: Echo struggles with identity aboard the Ark above a dying Earth. Raven can help with that.





	divided we stand, united we fall

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic super quickly cuz it was a pretty burning idea. I always thought we were cheated of a dynamic between Raven and Echo. Have fun with it!
> 
> A/N: This fic contains pretty big spoilers for Season 6, primarily regarding Echo's backstory. If you haven't seen it, don't read this fic unless you wanna know about her past before the canon explains it.

_Magic._

That’s what it felt like when Echo focused on the Ark - the ship humming around her, lights that were powered from nowhere, the air filters that chugged quietly with oxygen begotten from unseen sources. Everywhere the ship pulsated with knowledge, and intrigue.

Raven had tried to explain the ship to Echo, starting with the power.

_The sun gives out these particles - _

_What are particles?_

_They’re very small things. They make up everything in the universe. Including us._

_Alright then. You say the sun expels these particles?_

_Yes, they’re called photons. They make up light._

It had taken Echo a while to understand how light could be made of small particles. Raven had drawn her a picture.

_These particles, they hit this panel out here. Out the window, on the far side, see that grid-looking machine? It’s made up of many things called solar cells. One square is one cell._

_Monty told me about this. Many cells make a whole body. Right?_

_Yes! One solar panel is like a body, and each solar cell is, well…a cell. So the photons hit it, like in this picture. They get absorbed by the panel._

_Where do they go?_

_There are other little particles in the panel. They’re called electrons. When the photons hit them, they start moving around very fast. In chemistry you call it a state of ‘excitement’. Not to be confused with the emotion._

_What happens then?_

_It runs into an electrode. Then the energy from the excited particles is converted into electricity. It’s what powers the lights, and the oxygen, and any other machine here. So basically everything…except the algae, and us._

Echo sat on the bed in her tiny chamber, holding a machete, the only thing she had brought from Earth. She studied the crude Azgeda markings on the hilt, running her fingers over them like she had done every day since leaving Earth. These days it seemed it was the only thing tethering her to Azgeda. To herself. To her home.

_I shouldn’t think like that. I don’t have a home anymore._

Echo could already hear the rebuttals from the other people on the Ark. That she had a home, with them. Living on the Go-Sci ring together made them a family. That home was more than just a place, it was the people you shared it with. She thought it all horribly trite. Echo remembered the fight she’d had with the others over the topic, screaming and yelling, mostly from her. They had people to think about. They had friends, they had family. Everyone on board was Skaikru. There was community between them, and every day Echo was reminded painfully about the one she had lost.

“Azgeda doesn’t sound like much of a community to me,” Murphy had said, quiet and snarky in the midst of all the noise. Echo had thrown a spoon at him for that remark. She heard it bounce off the floor as she stormed back to her room.

Now everyone had forgotten about the fight, and indeed they treated her civilly for the most part. She taught Raven to fight. She went over the basics of Trig with Bellamy and Harper. Monty gave her science lessons. But she was always going to be the outsider, and Echo knew it.

Unless Raven wanted to spar with her, or Echo was having meals with the others, she sat here, looking out the viewport window. The earth looked like a blazing fireball, with hot orange clouds swirling and roiling like a tempest. She was not used to the colour. Her whole life had been dull, drab, grey, white, brown. Others might have thought them boring, but she found comfort in it. Now looking at the angry earth made her feel sad, and powerless.

The door was shut, but Echo could hear a clanking coming from outside. That could only be Raven. Beautiful, intelligent, enigmatic Raven. Who could repair anything, diagnose any mechanical problem at a moment’s glance. Who often trawled the ship, looking for something to fix or calculate. Now her roving gaze was locked on Echo and she had no idea what to make of it.

The door creaked open, complaining loudly as it did. “Are you still looking at that blade of yours?” Raven’s head poked around the jamb, a wry smile on her face. Echo returned it, stowing the blade under the mattress. “Of course. Seems it’s the only thing I do nowadays.”

Raven flopped onto the bed, the slats creaking. “How’s Eden doing?” Eden was their name for the larger patch of green amidst all of the destruction. Every day it still stayed, never growing larger, but not getting smaller either.

“It’s still the same,” Echo said, not turning away from the window.

Raven flipped her ponytail out of her face. “Why are you still staring at it? It’s not changing.”

_Because…I have no purpose here other than to stare at it, day in and day out. It’s a hope. That one day…we will return to the ground._

She did not say this, though. “It’s something to do.” At that, Raven poked her in the side. “Come on. I know there’s something more to this. What’s going on?”

Echo did not cry, in public, at any rate. She could still hear Queen Nia’s admonishments: _Crying is weakness. Weakness is death. Do you want to die, Echo? That’s what we do to weaklings in Azgeda. Do you want to be taken to the woods? Bad things happen to people there. Do you want to be one of them?_

Try as she might, she couldn’t stop one errant tear leaking out. Facing the window, Echo hoped Raven didn’t see. “It’s nothing.”

Echo heard a sigh from behind her, and she assumed Raven had left. But when she checked the reflection in the glass, the other girl had just made herself more comfortable on the bed.

“Is this about the belonging thing? Do you still feel like an outsider here?”

_Yes,_ Echo wanted to say, _yes, I do,_ but the words wouldn’t come. They were locked behind years of training and punishment and cruelty. Just like a door in an abandoned house she’d seen on Azgeda territory; the nuclear fallout had warped the door, so it wouldn’t open. Even if she wanted to, those words would not come.

“I suppose that’s a yes,” came Raven’s voice from behind her. “You can’t just sequester yourself.”

“All of you are Skaikru. I’m the only one here who doesn’t have anywhere to go.”

“What? You think you’re not one of us because you’re not Skaikru? That’s just stupid. We’re not family because we’re from the Ark.” Raven rolled over on the bed. “Listen. What did Skaikru ever do for us? They sent children down to an earth they didn’t even know was safe. They sent a sixteen-year-old to prison for life, for being born. They would rather have let us all die than tell us about the oxygen crisis!”

Echo wiped her eyes. “But I’m still not part of this…group.”

“We survived a dangerous-as-fuck cloud of radioactive pyroclastic flow running us over. That’s what made us. What brought us together. Not the places we came from.” Raven laughed, her white teeth glittering in the light from the viewport. “We almost died together.”

“We did,” Echo allowed.

“You’re my family, Echo.” Raven’s work-hardened hands linked with Echo’s. “We didn’t come from the same place. But we both ended up here, and that was worth it.”

* * *

Echo rarely dreamed, but tonight she did.

_“You are not Spacekru. What kind of person kills their own best friend? You even took her identity. You tried to kill Octavia. You tried to hurt people. You wonder why nobody in space accepts you? You pretend it’s because you’re Azgeda, but really it’s because you’re too afraid to admit the truth. That they think you’re a monster who will hurt anyone who gets close.”_

_Echo could not see her, but she knew it was Queen Nia saying those things._ That’s not true. I changed. They like me. They’re my people.

_“Is this who you are now, Echo? I didn’t train you that way. What do we do to weaklings, Echo? Or should I say…Ash?”_

I’m still Azgeda, _Echo said into the void._

_“I don’t think you are. Begging for approval from them. From our enemies. Grovelling for forgiveness. Ice Nation do not seek forgiveness for anything.”_

Maybe we should, _Echo said. She thought Nia’s voice might get angry, but it didn’t._

_“You are no longer Azgeda,” Nia said resignedly._

* * *

When Echo started awake, the Go-Sci Ring had orbited around to the night side of the Earth. Tiny pinpricks of light were the only bright spots in the inky black sky. The darkness was so complete that she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face.

Dream-Nia’s words kept rocketing around in her head. Echo knew, rationally, that the queen hadn’t actually said most of those things in person. Even so, her mind’s fabrication was so vivid, so realistic, that she couldn’t help moaning a little. She took several shaky breaths as she wiped her face. The bed shifted a little.

“Echo? Echo, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. Just a bad dream. I shouldn’t be crying.”

“It’s alright to cry, you know. Wanna talk about it?”

Echo tensed. _Crying is for weaklings! Is that who you are? Is that who you are, Echo kom Azgeda? Is it?_ “No,” she said, failing to choke back a sob.

A warm hand found hers, a thumb rubbing her palm. “Alright,” came Raven’s quiet voice from somewhere. “I’ll stay here until you feel better.”

“I’m sorry,” Echo said weakly. “It was just a bad dream. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

“Of course I’m staying, you doof,” Raven said wryly. “Where else would I be? I’m not going anywhere.” Her hand stroked Echo’s face. “You’re so cold. Come here. Snuggle with me.”

Echo reached a hand out, found Raven’s leg, her waist, her shoulder. So warm. So inviting. How long had it been since she’d shared a bed with someone?

“There you go,” said Raven once they were securely in each other’s embrace.

“Can you stay awake for me?” Echo asked, into the darkness. “I don’t want to sleep just yet.”

“Sure.”

They waited, the ship’s humming their only companion. The stars slowly tilted, spinning around in their individual orbits. The oxygen generators whooshed, their streamers flapping. Raven’s breaths warmed Echo’s shoulder as regularly as a metronome.

She did not know how much time had passed. Echo tried to keep time by Raven’s breathing, but she lost count after a while. It was only then that she started to sing.

She did not recognise the song. Assumedly some strange little Ark tune, from years gone by. Raven’s voice had a certain tunelessness, but to Echo it sounded like the sweetest thing she’d heard. Ice Nation did not sing. The last time she’d heard anything musical was before Azgeda. Her mother, cooking something over an open flame and humming.

The words came then like a burst dam. “Raven, my name isn’t actually Echo, it’s Ash,” she began, not wanting to keep going but also unable to stop. “I’m not really Azgeda, I was captured by them when I was eight. They took our land, but my father, he wouldn’t back down to them, not ever, and they killed him. My mother hid in the basement with me but she died too, they all died in the fire Azgeda set. It was so hot, so bright. Nia found me, trained me, one of the other girls there was the real Echo. She was my best friend, but they forced us to fight, if one didn’t kill the other we’d both die. We did fight, we did, I tried so hard but the real Echo, she was too strong, and she - ” Echo broke off, sobbing into Raven’s shirt.

Raven was already trying to salvage the situation. “Echo - ”

“I stabbed her with an arrow! I didn’t even think about it, I just did it, I didn’t want to die, I wanted to stay alive. But I did, and Nia forced me to become Echo, but I don’t deserve to be her, I killed her, I killed my best friend.”

“But if you didn’t, you would have died yourself.”

“And I should’ve. You don’t know! I don’t deserve to live. I killed her without a second thought.” Even now, so many years later, the primal fear she’d felt had the power to overwhelm her. For a moment, Echo could not breathe - as if her lungs had frozen. She clutched onto Raven, her only lifeline in the sea of terror. _Weak!_

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, I’m here, Echo, I’m here,” Raven said, but she was barely audible over the ringing in her ears.

“I shouldn’t be alive,” Echo whispered, her voice all but gone. “Not after what I’ve done.”

“None of us should be. We all hurt people we loved. I did. Bellamy did. Murphy did. You know he shot me? Octavia did.” Raven sighed, tightening her embrace around Echo. “But we can’t change what we did. We all thought it was the best option at the time. And maybe it wasn’t, but we can’t go back in time. We can only live well and make their deaths count for something.”

“That sounds sappy. You didn’t kill someone you loved.”

Raven shifted. “No, not directly. But I gave Clarke the knife to kill Lexa. She used it to kill Finn. Mercy death, she said later. Maybe that was true, but it kept me awake at night for a long time. If I wasn’t so hung up on killing the Commander, Finn might still be alive. And then I forgot about him once I took A.L.I.E’s chip. We’re all terrible people here, Echo. We had to be, to survive. But it’s what we do with the life we have now that matters.” She sighed. “Do you care about honour?”

“Yes, of course.” Echo wondered where this tended.

“Then honour their deaths. We might’ve caused them, but the only thing we can do now is to live a life that can live up to theirs.”

“I might go to sleep now,” Echo said, and she meant it, her whole body gelatinous with fatigue. All at once darkness was closing in around her.

“Stay with me?” She meant it as a command, but it came out like a question.

“Forever,” came the reply, so faint it could have come from between the stars and beyond the edge of the galaxy.

Under the viewport window, entwined in Raven’s arms, Echo slept, and found that her dreams did not torment her again.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeahhhhh, this might have been a little OOC for the both of them....but cmon, who doesn't wanna see Echo show weakness every once in a while?


End file.
